4 ms·

Am I the only one who would just … walk outside and talk to the 4channers who showed up? Probably offer them a cig and a meme. I’ve been thinking of tweeting m

Am I the only one who would just … walk outside and talk to the 4channers who showed up? Probably offer them a cig and a meme. I’ve been thinking of tweeting my home address, so this is a relevant concern. What do you even do when someone comes to your house, other than listen to them? It could also be true that they did something a lot less friendly, like “bang on the windows and run away laughing.” That would be unsettling to experience, particularly at night. This is a sad situation. Their Internet notoriety is the source of the problem, one way or another, and they felt like they couldn’t continue. I respect that; family is #1.

willhinsa 5y ago
It could very likely not be 4channers who show up at your house, but a SWAT team looking to take you out for holding someone hostage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Wichita_swatting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Wichita_swatting
- applefangirl 5y ago
  Or more they may send pizza deliveries and subscribe you too every mailing list known to man. Don’t post your address. Use a PO BOX if you must.
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    Yeah, that's a good point. But I mean, on the other hand, free pizza. Actually, this is a good example. There have been ~two high profile swatting incidents resulting in death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_due_to_swatting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_du... Dying in a car crash is a lot higher probability for most of us, but the question is whether publishing one's address would raise the probability significantly. I'm not sure it would. And it's hard to think of what else people can do, other than, as you say, subscribe you to a bunch of fetish mailing lists that I'd probably get a kick out of anyway.
    - ggreer 5y ago
      The wikipedia article you linked to only has one death, and it was an uninvolved person. In the 2015 Oklahoma swatting incident, the swatting victim shot the police chief, then surrendered. The cop survived and the swatting victim was not charged.[1] My guess is that the police really screwed up and didn't announce themselves before busting down his door. 1. https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/no-charges-man-who-shot-police-chief-oklahoma-msna508901 https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/no-charges-man-who-shot-police-c...
  - tzs 5y ago
    History trivia: you might think that sending a bunch of deliveries is a modern thing, made possible by the telephone. But no, if you were sufficiently dedicated you could do it back when you had to send letters to order stuff. In 1809 this [1] happened in London: > On 27 November, at five o'clock in the morning, a sweep arrived to sweep the chimneys of Mrs Tottenham's house. The maid who answered the door informed him that no sweep had been requested, and that his services were not required. A few moments later another sweep presented himself, then another, and another; twelve in all. After the last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying large deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of cakemakers delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers, vicars and priests summoned to minister to someone in the house they had been told was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers and over a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with "six stout men bearing an organ". Dignitaries, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of London, also arrived. The narrow streets soon became severely congested with tradesmen and onlookers. Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing a large part of London to a standstill. The person behind that wrote thousands of letters to set that up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berners_Street_hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berners_Street_hoax
newbie789 5y ago
I would strongly advise against tweeting your home address as some sort of experiment.
- immibis 5y ago
  Obvious follow-up: do you think it's illegal to tweet your home address plus or minus 5 houses?
  - Google234 5y ago
    Illegal no, bad yes. Also you would probably be partially liable if anything bad happened.
  - newbie789 5y ago
    What? I think that’s also a bad idea. I didn’t mean “advise” in the sense of “I’m a lawyer giving you free advice” I meant it more as “that sounds like a bad idea to me, some random person who isn’t a lawyer”
DenseComet 5y ago
The issue with having your address known isn't a random person showing up to your door, because the chances of any of them actually coming to your place is very low. The issue is having the police showing up at your door with guns blazing. This has become a huge issue for live streamers and youtubers and has led to deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting
AussieWog93 5y ago
If you are seriously that naive, don't post your address on Twitter. It is a bad idea.
bingidingi 5y ago
that’s an incredibly bad idea, 4chan posters have actually assaulted people, people have died from swatting, some of these people are very unstable
todd3834 5y ago
I'm guessing you don't have kids
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  You're right. I wish we did though. IVF is so expensive in America that it's cheaper to fly to South Korea and get the procedure done there, by $10's of thousands. Even still, would 4chan really dare mess with someone's kid? Generally they try to avoid going to prison, or vigilante retribution. I guess you're right though. Thanks for pointing that out. I can think of a few ways 4chan could troll someone's child without risking themselves.
  - fossislife 5y ago
    Here in Germany there is a YouTuber (only 100k subs) who gets daily visits from many trolls. Police already locked up his very small town for outsiders but his young visitors don't seem to care and regularly get fined. It all started when he posted his address online.
    - sillysaurusx 5y ago
      Thank you for this datapoint. I didn't realize that. I live in a small town myself, relatively speaking (St. Louis isn't exactly a tech hub), so I was thinking that might guard me somewhat. But, my follower count keeps growing for some reason, and stuff like this has been more and more on my mind. I appreciate it. If you have any links to further info, I'd be curious to read. Otherwise, no worries.
  - immibis 5y ago
    Would 4chan really dare mess with someone? Clearly they do. And they don't care about prison or vigilante retribution in that case.
  - wildflying 5y ago
    > Generally they try to avoid going to prison, or vigilante retribution. Generally is an important distinction though ;). Living in fear of falling out of that "generally" is probably not fun.
tzs 5y ago
> I’ve been thinking of tweeting my home address, so this is a relevant concern. Giving out their home address didn't work out well for Tony Stark in "Iron Man 3" or for this guy in New Jersey [1], but they both had done things to get some people really annoyed with them. So at the very least make sure that you don't have anyone out there who is really annoyed with you and has only been prevented from forcefully expressing that annoyance because they do not know where you live. [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-man-who-went-on-a-racist-rant-gave-out-his-address-and-said-come-see-me-more-than-100-protesters-did/ar-AALPc5r https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-man-who-went-on-a-racist...
- SilverRed 5y ago
  The news article makes me wonder if you could do the same thing except give someone else's address. Mob justice isn't known for calm and logical analysis.
benhurmarcel 5y ago
According to that link, they showed up with a butterfly knife and slit his arm.
throwaway43576 5y ago
>It could also be true that they did something a lot less friendly I mean, they cut the guy in the arm with a knife, on his own yard, haven't you read that? Surely you wouldn't expect anyone to have a friendly attitude after that.

willhinsa 5y ago

It could very likely not be 4channers who show up at your house, but a SWAT team looking to take you out for holding someone hostage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Wichita_swatting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Wichita_swatting

applefangirl 5y ago
Or more they may send pizza deliveries and subscribe you too every mailing list known to man. Don’t post your address. Use a PO BOX if you must.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  Yeah, that's a good point. But I mean, on the other hand, free pizza. Actually, this is a good example. There have been ~two high profile swatting incidents resulting in death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_due_to_swatting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_du... Dying in a car crash is a lot higher probability for most of us, but the question is whether publishing one's address would raise the probability significantly. I'm not sure it would. And it's hard to think of what else people can do, other than, as you say, subscribe you to a bunch of fetish mailing lists that I'd probably get a kick out of anyway.
  - ggreer 5y ago
    The wikipedia article you linked to only has one death, and it was an uninvolved person. In the 2015 Oklahoma swatting incident, the swatting victim shot the police chief, then surrendered. The cop survived and the swatting victim was not charged.[1] My guess is that the police really screwed up and didn't announce themselves before busting down his door. 1. https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/no-charges-man-who-shot-police-chief-oklahoma-msna508901 https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/no-charges-man-who-shot-police-c...
- tzs 5y ago
  History trivia: you might think that sending a bunch of deliveries is a modern thing, made possible by the telephone. But no, if you were sufficiently dedicated you could do it back when you had to send letters to order stuff. In 1809 this [1] happened in London: > On 27 November, at five o'clock in the morning, a sweep arrived to sweep the chimneys of Mrs Tottenham's house. The maid who answered the door informed him that no sweep had been requested, and that his services were not required. A few moments later another sweep presented himself, then another, and another; twelve in all. After the last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying large deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of cakemakers delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers, vicars and priests summoned to minister to someone in the house they had been told was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers and over a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with "six stout men bearing an organ". Dignitaries, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of London, also arrived. The narrow streets soon became severely congested with tradesmen and onlookers. Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing a large part of London to a standstill. The person behind that wrote thousands of letters to set that up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berners_Street_hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berners_Street_hoax

newbie789 5y ago

I would strongly advise against tweeting your home address as some sort of experiment.

immibis 5y ago
Obvious follow-up: do you think it's illegal to tweet your home address plus or minus 5 houses?
- Google234 5y ago
  Illegal no, bad yes. Also you would probably be partially liable if anything bad happened.
- newbie789 5y ago
  What? I think that’s also a bad idea. I didn’t mean “advise” in the sense of “I’m a lawyer giving you free advice” I meant it more as “that sounds like a bad idea to me, some random person who isn’t a lawyer”

DenseComet 5y ago

The issue with having your address known isn't a random person showing up to your door, because the chances of any of them actually coming to your place is very low. The issue is having the police showing up at your door with guns blazing. This has become a huge issue for live streamers and youtubers and has led to deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting

AussieWog93 5y ago

If you are seriously that naive, don't post your address on Twitter. It is a bad idea.

bingidingi 5y ago

that’s an incredibly bad idea, 4chan posters have actually assaulted people, people have died from swatting, some of these people are very unstable

todd3834 5y ago

I'm guessing you don't have kids

sillysaurusx 5y ago
You're right. I wish we did though. IVF is so expensive in America that it's cheaper to fly to South Korea and get the procedure done there, by $10's of thousands. Even still, would 4chan really dare mess with someone's kid? Generally they try to avoid going to prison, or vigilante retribution. I guess you're right though. Thanks for pointing that out. I can think of a few ways 4chan could troll someone's child without risking themselves.
- fossislife 5y ago
  Here in Germany there is a YouTuber (only 100k subs) who gets daily visits from many trolls. Police already locked up his very small town for outsiders but his young visitors don't seem to care and regularly get fined. It all started when he posted his address online.
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    Thank you for this datapoint. I didn't realize that. I live in a small town myself, relatively speaking (St. Louis isn't exactly a tech hub), so I was thinking that might guard me somewhat. But, my follower count keeps growing for some reason, and stuff like this has been more and more on my mind. I appreciate it. If you have any links to further info, I'd be curious to read. Otherwise, no worries.
- immibis 5y ago
  Would 4chan really dare mess with someone? Clearly they do. And they don't care about prison or vigilante retribution in that case.
- wildflying 5y ago
  > Generally they try to avoid going to prison, or vigilante retribution. Generally is an important distinction though ;). Living in fear of falling out of that "generally" is probably not fun.

tzs 5y ago

> I’ve been thinking of tweeting my home address, so this is a relevant concern. Giving out their home address didn't work out well for Tony Stark in "Iron Man 3" or for this guy in New Jersey [1], but they both had done things to get some people really annoyed with them. So at the very least make sure that you don't have anyone out there who is really annoyed with you and has only been prevented from forcefully expressing that annoyance because they do not know where you live. [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-man-who-went-on-a-racist-rant-gave-out-his-address-and-said-come-see-me-more-than-100-protesters-did/ar-AALPc5r https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-man-who-went-on-a-racist...

SilverRed 5y ago
The news article makes me wonder if you could do the same thing except give someone else's address. Mob justice isn't known for calm and logical analysis.

benhurmarcel 5y ago

According to that link, they showed up with a butterfly knife and slit his arm.

throwaway43576 5y ago

>It could also be true that they did something a lot less friendly I mean, they cut the guy in the arm with a knife, on his own yard, haven't you read that? Surely you wouldn't expect anyone to have a friendly attitude after that.